In downtown Stockholm, on a cold evening at the end of February in 1986, a man and his wife are walking along the Svere-Vagan Boulevard.

It's about 1115 at night.

A couple have just been to the city's old town, to the cinema,

where they spent the evening with their son and his girlfriend for a performance of the Mozart brothers,

a comedy about an experimental production of Don Chivani.

And now they're back out on the street. They stop and look briefly into a shop window and then carry on strolling down the boulevard.

A few minutes later, a man comes up behind them and shoots them both in the back before running off down a side street.

The first bullet goes through the back of the man's neck,

severing his corroded artery. The second grazes the woman.

By the time the man is brought to hospital a little over half an hour later, he's dead. 34 years ago an assassin murdered the Swedish Prime Minister and traumatized a nation. If you think of people in Sweden, we've really never experienced any kind of national

catastrophe, really, in that sense.

To this day, the murder of Olaf Palma remains unsolved. But now authorities say there's new

evidence and they're on the verge of concluding the case. Every time somebody

comes up with a new piece of evidence it's's front page news in all of the newspapers.

But after three and a half decades and thousands of theories, will we ever get an answer that satisfies a nation?

You're listening to stories of our times

from the Times or the Sunday Times.

I'm David Aronovich.

Today. I'm David Aromovich. Today, when did you first hear about the murder of Olaf Palmer?

Do you know, I couldn't say for sure.

It's just always been there in that firmament of cold war things that happened just before I was born.

It just appeared as footnotes in books, odd paragraphs.

...